Foreign mercenaries in US military?

It's not that easy to actually determine who is a mercenary. By the laws of war, a captured soldier is to be considered a POW or "lawful combatant", and can only be determined to be a mercenary by a military tribunal.

A mercenary, by generic definition, is a soldier who fights or engages in warfare primarily for private gain, usually with little regard for ideological, national, or political considerations.

The Gurkhas aren't mercenaries; they are fully integrated units of the British and Indian Armies. They just have a lot of history behind them. Same with the French Foreign Legion. They deploy as an organized unit of the French Army. If something similar were to be organized for the U.S., then I think the same rules would apply.

Most of the civilized countries have very strict penalties for "traditional" mercenary activities. In fact, as far as the security contractors in Iraq are concerned, it took a DoD ruling in 2006 to actually authorize them to use deadly force. Before that they were actually subject to the United States Neutrality Act and the Anti-Pinkerton act. Austria revokes citizenship for any Austrian that volunteers to serve in another country's armed forces. Switzerland has long outlawed mercenary work for it's citizens (except for the Vatican Guards). France, England, and Italy also have strict laws against it.
 
We already have illegal aliens in the military
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Source, please?

You need to be a Permanent Resident (a.k.a. Green Card holder) or citizen to enlist in the United States military.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I'd like you to document that claim or retract it.
 
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0540,gillison,68594,2.html

Marines: Looking for a Few Good Aliens?
Recruiter on trial for selling IDs to enlist illegals
by Douglas Gillison
October 4th, 2005 5:11 PM







This week, a general court martial is to begin at Parris Island, South Carolina, for a U.S. Marine recruiter accused of selling and delivering counterfeit documents to illegal aliens in order for them to join the service.
Gunnery Sergeant Hubert A. Lucas, 35, is one of four suspects named in a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, part of which was obtained by the Voice.

The report says an investigation began on August 11, 2004, after an intelligence report by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency revealed that a Marine at Camp Pendleton in California, who had admitted to entering the United States illegally and enlisting with a counterfeit green card and stolen Social Security number, identified Lucas as the individual who charged her $250 for the documents for the purpose of effecting her fraudulent enlistment in the Marine Corps.

badbob
 
http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/000673.htm

ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE MILITARY
By Michelle Malkin · October 17, 2004 04:36 AM
Last week's issue of People magazine has a brief article about Liliana Plata, an illegal alien from Mexico who allegedly entered the Air Force by pretending to be Cristina Alaniz, a student at Texas State University. According to news reports, Plata was able to join the Air Force using identity documents she had purchased on the black market in Los Angeles for about $2,000. Plata argues that she should be spared punishment for fraud, and be spared punishment for violating our immigration laws, and be spared for deceiving the U.S. government because she served honorably in Iraq. A lot of soft-headed, open borders sympathizers agree with her.

Coverage of this fiasco has focused on the awful nightmare the real Cristina Alaniz has faced in trying to recover her identity and restore her good name. But the more important issue here is the national security lapse on the part of the military. How the hell did they let Plata in with her bogus ID? Is anybody being held accountable? The last we heard on this was back in May, when the Austin American-Statesman reported on the case:

Airman Alaniz's ability to use false documents -- a Social Security card and a birth certificate -- to join the Air Force raises a troubling question: Could terrorists or other U.S. enemies use the same method to infiltrate the military?
"I was concerned this was an espionage case," said Austin police Detective Andrew Perkel. "If someone is in the military under an assumed identity, it raises the question why."

Air Force and Pentagon officials did not comment on that question Thursday. An Air Force spokesman said recruits go through extensive background checks, performed by the military and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and must show a Social Security card, driver's license and a birth certificate...

badbob
 
What sort of oath does the Foreign Legion take? Their enlisted men are from
all over but their officers are regular French Army officers. In the case of the
Gurkhas, etc., I believe they swear allegiance to the British Sovereign.
 
What sort of oath does the Foreign Legion take? Their enlisted men are from
all over but their officers are regular French Army officers. In the case of the
Gurkhas, etc., I believe they swear allegiance to the British Sovereign.
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The Foreign Legion swears allegiance to the Legion itself, not France.
 
Insider connected corporations like Bechtel and Dyn Corp OPENLY operate as mercenaries FOR the U.S. military. It's how the U.S. government does things now to avoid accountability.
 
Insider connected corporations like Bechtel and Dyn Corp OPENLY operate as mercenaries FOR the U.S. military. It's how the U.S. government does things now to avoid accountability.
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"Mercenary" carries a lot of negative baggage. The media use the word a lot to make things look as bad as possible, and as such have caused the lines that define "mercenary" and "contractor" to blur.

Working for money is not the defining factor of being a mercenary: we all work for money.

Contractor companies, by whatever name you choose to call them, are American, hired by the U.S., to support U.S. interests. And it's not new, it's been going on ever since the great Clinton drawdown. The Pentagon have been "outsourcing" logistic, training, etc., for over a decade.

DynCorp operates in a support capacity for the U.S. military, mostly security and aircraft maintenance. In Afghanistan, they are involved with the drug (opium) program, as well as police training.

They HAVE come under a great deal of criticism in the recent past. Heavy handedness in Afghanistan (one of the security guards slapped an Afghan politician a while ago), and the overall experience level of their police advisors, as well as some loose cannons in Iraq that ran afoul of the CG of 3ID a couple of years ago. The times that I had dealings with them, they were mostly a decent bunch of folks, but as with all large organizations you always end up with a few bad apples.

These things (among others- in Bosnia there were some DynCorp employees that got caught with their pants down in a prostitution sting) have opened discussions on whether or not PMC's can be held accountable in the same manner as military personnel.
 
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Why not? See all these "my son will not go to this war" mommies. Still, sometimes somebody must fight (and maybe die) even in war which looks not so beautiful in the evening news.
 
Alex_L said:
Still, sometimes somebody must fight (and maybe die)........
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I agree about the fighting part, but when it comes to dying part........


Would you prefer that either you and/or your son(s) to be the one(s) to die?



or


Would you rather hope either someone else and/or someone else's son(s), preferrably someone else you don't know personally in friendly terms(of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that someone is anymore worthy of dying than either you or someone you know in friendly terms) to be one(s) to die?


if someone has to die.




Alex_L said:
.........even in war which looks not so beautiful in the evening news.
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Which war was the war that looked so beautiful in the evening news?
 
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forign citizens enlisting in the US Army

Fewer foreign nationals enlisting in US military services
By Laura Wides, Associated Press | April 17, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- The number of foreign nationals enlisting in the US military is dropping, even though service now provides a fast track to American citizenship, a review of military data shows.

The decrease in non-citizen enlistees -- who hail from countries such as the Philippines, Mexico, Nigeria, and Germany -- has hit all branches of the armed services, which already are struggling with recruitment as the US presence in Iraq enters its third year.

While US citizen enlistments also have fallen, the drop is more pronounced among non-citizens, legal immigrants the military has long allowed to serve as everything from cooks to front-line soldiers, though not generally as officers.

Although the Pentagon has placed a heavy emphasis on recruiting, officials say they're not concerned about the enlistment dip among non-citizens.

The decline surprises immigration and military specialists, who expected that green-card holders who might otherwise wait years to become Americans would jump at the citizenship offer President Bush extended nearly three years ago.

Instead, the annual number of noncitizen enlistees has fallen nearly 20 percent from fiscal year 2001, the last full year before the changes, to fiscal year 2004, according to military data.

Much of the decline, from 11,829 to 9,477 recruits, came last year alone.

By comparison, annual enlistments among citizens dropped 12 percent, from 264,832 to 232,957 recruits.

Although noncitizens represent a fraction of active-duty personnel, every recruit matters as casualties mount and more reserves are being called up than at any time since the Korean War.

One recent study for the Defense Department, using statistics through 2002, found that noncitizens who enlist were less likely than citizens to leave within the first three years; nearly 20 percent of them left in that period, compared with 32 percent of citizens.

Some 142 non-citizen troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Noncitizens' casualty rates represent 8 percent of the total, despite being less than 3 percent of active duty military personnel.

Bush pitched citizenship, not as a selling point, but as a reward for service.

Last year, more than 7,500 people already in uniform gained citizenship through the military, the highest numbers since the Vietnam War.

But potential recruits who are legal immigrants are less drawn to the offer, pointing out that they can apply to be citizens without risking their lives.

Victor Raygosa and his friends are among the skeptics. After flirting with Navy enlistment -- recruiters would leave their cards at high school football practice and stop by his home -- Raygosa chose instead to work odd jobs and get an education.

''My mother told me if I went into the military, she would go crazy," said Raygosa, 25, who came to Los Angeles from Mexico 10 years ago and now attends Santa Monica College.

A few months ago, he filled out his citizenship application.

''It was easy, a lot easier than joining the military," he said. ''I can wait."

The United States' roughly 30,000 foreign soldiers come from more than 100 countries, with the largest contingent living in California. More than a third are Hispanic.
 
Red Grant,

Do you have a problem?

Let's not be coy. All that space and selective bolding. Say it man. What's your point?
 
Bud Helms said:
Do you have a problem?
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No. I have questions.



Bud Helms said:
All that space and selective bolding.
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Because I want to make it as easy as possible for the other party to understand my questions.



Bud Helms said:
Say it Man. What's your point?
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I already said it [the questions].



I want to find out the answers, that is my point.
 
I got the point of Red Grant's post. He's making the point that a lot of people support this war in name only. I believe that he believes that those talkers should pony up and enlist themselves and strongly encourage their children, friends, and other relatives to enlist in the military as well. You know, to show that they truly support this noble conflict that we are involved in. ("noble conflict" said with heavy sarcasm)

If that's what he meant...I agree. Why haven't the members of the Bush and Cheney families flocked the the recruiting office to support this war? Why aren't all the eligible members of the senate and congress enlisted in the military along with all eligible members of their families? Why? Perhaps it's not such a noble conflict after all? Perhaps nobody should be supporting this war if the very ones who started it (and their friends and families) won't support it. (NO, sending other people to die in their place does NOT count as supporting the war.)
 
Why aren't all the eligible members of the senate and congress enlisted in the military along with all eligible members of their families? Why aren't all the eligible members of the senate and congress enlisted in the military along with all eligible members of their families? Why? Perhaps it's not such a noble conflict after all? Perhaps nobody should be supporting this war if the very ones who started it (and their friends and families) won't support it.
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I believe you would be hard-pressed to find ANY war where this occurred - WW II being the closest, maybe. Do you then hold that none of the wars we have been involved in were "noble conflicts"?
 
I hold that at the very least..those who support the war should be fighting it. If The administration can't even get their families and friends to fight in this conflict (or any other) then by what right to they send strangers to fight in their stead?

If those who with their voices support this conflict aren't willing to risk their lives..by what right to they send others to fight and die..others who don't share the belief that this war is just, good, and moral?

Perhaps if the administration walked the walk instead of just talking the talk..we the people would also be more willing to believe in the importance and legitimacy of this conflict.
 
So, essentially, before anyone declares war, they need to get their family and friends to sign up for it, kinda like a pick-up ball game? Would this have worked for WW II or would we now be speaking German?
 
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